Flood of Filings Challenges FCC’s Cross-Ownership Decision

FLOOD OF FILINGS CHALLENGES FCC'S CROSS-OWNERSHIP DECISION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
According to a letter from the FCC to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation of Multicircuit Petitions for Review, more than one-dozen lawsuits were filed against the rules from both anti-consolidation activists that said it went too far to broadcasters that said it didn’t go far enough. Media Access Project president Andrew J. Schwartzman, who filed one of them, said the number is closer to 20, including dual filings by petitions taking two legal routes to essentially the same challenge, as well as ones that didn’t make the FCC’s 10-day cutoff for reporting to the panel -- essentially a group of judges who will decide what court will hear the case. The challenges were filed in at least five separate circuits. Broadcasters stuck with the D.C. Circuit, though, to be friendlier to their consolidation cause, while media activists filed in various circuits -- Ninth, Sixth, First -- while saying that the appeals should all be funneled to the Third Circuit, which remanded the FCC’s deregulatory 2003 rules back to the commission for better justification.
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